For we are young and free
Reflect on their stories

Stories
Behind the faces reflected

Their stories represent the qualities of Australians at war and the continued sacrifices our servicemen and women have made, and continue to make, for us.

Able Seaman Natalie Warren-McCarthy

Able Seaman Natalie Warren-McCarthy (far right) is a member of the Australian Federal Guard (AFG). The AFG provides a Tri-Service ceremonial capability to ‘promote the standards, values, traditions, and ethos of the Australian Defence Force and Australia’. The AFG often conducts a Catafalque Party at the Memorial as an essential part of our Last Post Ceremony.

Unidentified soldiers

This image was captured in January 1915, at Broadmeadows in Victoria. Broadmeadows was a major army training camp for the Australian Imperial Force. It was the training ground for the Light Horse regiments, and the site for signals training for all Australian troops during the first call up.

Salvation Army Officer

This gentleman (C) was a Salvation Army Officer, captured with Mick Palmer and a fellow Salvation Army Officer in Sidon, Palestine during the Second World War.

Petty Officer Julie Higgs

In this image Petty Officer Julie Higgs, of HMAS ANZAC, embraces her daughters Jordan and Maddy, during a homecoming ceremony at Victoria Quay, Fremantle, WA in 2003. Petty Officer Higgs was the only mother on board HMAS ANZAC during its deployment to the Persian Gulf and Iraq.

Corporal Leslie ‘Bull’ Allen

Corporal Leslie ‘Bull’ Allen, age 26 of Ballarat Victoria, carries an American soldier to safety. The soldier had been knocked unconscious by a mortar bomb. Allen carried out twelve American casualties while under fire on Mount Tambu, New Guinea. For this gallantry he received the United States Silver Star. This image was captured by Gordon Short on 30 July 1943.

Captain Tom Wickham

Australian Army officer Captain Tom Wickham, from Task Group Taji 4, is working at the Taji Military Complex, Iraq. He is part of Operation OKRA where Australian and New Zealand soldiers are training members of the Iraqi Army to defeat the Daesh terrorist group.

They are deployed on active service to Iraq as part of Task Group Taji. This image was captured by CPL Kyle Gunner for the Department of Defence.

The training includes weapons handling, combat first aid, building clearances and obstacle breaching techniques, as well as instruction in the tactics, techniques and procedures for squad through to company-level operations for use in the fight against Daesh.

Flying Officer Victoria Irvine

Flying Officer Victoria Irvine (L) and Leading Aircraftwoman Brooke Coleman comprise the stand-by medical staff during a live fire exercise at a Forward Operating Base as part of Ex Hellfire 2014 at Wide Bay Training Area, QLD. This photograph was taken by LSIS Jayson Tufrey for the Department of Defence.

Flight Lieutenant Kaitlyn O’Brien

Flight Lieutenant Kaitlyn O’Brien is Aide-de-Camp to the Minister for Defence, Hon Marise Payne MP. Here she is with the Minister, who is laying a wreath at the Parliamentary Last Post Ceremony in February 2017.

Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force

This photograph tells the story of three women from one family, all who served with the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) in World War II. On the left is Clare Stevenson, the Director of the WAAAF, and her two nieces Sergeant Warnock (C) and Sergeant Grant-Stevenson (R). Here they are all arriving for duty at Merton Hall, Victoria in 1944. The Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) was formed in March 1941 after considerable lobbying by women keen to serve and by the Chief of the Air Staff who wanted to release male personnel serving in Australia for service overseas. The WAAAF was the largest of the Second World War women's services, before it was disbanded in 1947.

When Robyn Gladwin was growing up, her mother Marjorie wouldn’t talk to her much about her father, Flight Lieutenant Duncan John Murchison. But she always told her daughter that she knew the exact moment he was killed during the Second World War when Robyn was just a newborn baby.